Protection and Love
by YuriChan220
Summary: There are times when your friends are there for you when you need it most.


**Protection and Love**

 **Pairing: Mai x Leona x Athena**

 **Genre: Friendship/Romance**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own King of Fighters or any of its characters.**

 **Author's Note: Well then! After a…rather complicated discussion with Jojo-san, I finally convinced him to write this action packed story. Though, this idea goes to him. So I thank him for that.**

 **Please enjoy~!**

Mai starts to walk home that day, looking up at the sky. It's full of dark clouds, making her a bit worried. And here she is, wearing a black Chinese dress with an opening that shows part of her cleavage. She lets out a soft sigh.

"I never knew it was going to rain today," she says to herself. "Must be the weather guys who got the prediction wrong..."

She puts her hands behind her back as she keeps on walking. But she is unaware that one guy in a hoodie is grinning and decides to follow her closely.

Turning to the right corner, Mai continues walking until she can hear footsteps go close behind her. She swiftly turns around and sees a hooded guy that's taller than her wearing sunglasses, grinning.

"Creep..." she says to herself as she keeps on walking, but is grabbed by the wrist.

"Hey, come on babe~" he says. "Hang out with me for a bit. You look totally hot in that dress of yours~

"H-hey, let go will you?" Mai says trying to shake his hand off. "I have somewhere to be."

"Ohhhh, don't worry. This won't take long. After all, I kind of admire you~" he peers close to her, making Mai look at him in disgust.

"Filthy pervert," she says. "You don't realize that I already love someone."

"Heh heh, I don't see a ring on that finger. Cmon baby!" the man persists, even going so far as to grab a handful of her bountiful ass. "Just a minute is all it takes. I work fast!"

The next noise from the creep's mouth was a pained squeak, as the full force of Mai's knee rams into his balls, rendering him a helpless pile on the asphalt as he sinks to the ground.

"Heh. It'll probably take you a little longer now!" Mai laughs as she struts away, feeling 100% about herself after that personal victory. In this troubled age of vulnerable women, it feels good to be able to stand her ground and kick ass when creeps try to get handsy.

The thug lays on the ground, still trying to come off of the searing pain that shoots from between his legs all the way up into the pit of his stomach. He tries a few times to at least get to his knees... but he finds he can't even spread his legs without succumbing to the horrific agony.

Finally, with an almost girlish squeal, he collapses back to the ground. In the midst of his helplessness, he can only make one vow:

"Oh you're going to regret that, little girl. You're going to regret that deeply."

It is then that it begins to rain and it quickly rains hard. Mai groans loudly.

"Awww! And I was wearing this best dress!" she complains. She throws her arms down and tries to run. She COULD use her ninja speed to get to her home quicker, but there are people around, so they might get a little suspicious. However, before she even comes about 15 feet, a group of 3 taller guys with pipes, knives and wooden planks start coming in front of her, another group of 4 guys come from behind.

"Wh-what!?" Mai cannot believe it. Where did they all come from?

She backs away as the guys come closer and closer to her, making her back away further until she bumps into a brick wall. The guys come closer, grinning and chuckling evilly at the same time.

"Ohhhh, this girl's super sexy~!"

"I'm going for her boobs~"

"I want her so badly right now!"

Mai grits her teeth, pulling out her fan from her cleavage, holding it out. "Alright, guys. I have no choice but..." She spins around, creating fire around her, setting those guys ablaze and falling over, dead. She goes to her iconic victory pose. "Yo! Nippoichi~!"

However, if she thinks it's over, she thought wrong. One guy sneaks up behind her and bashes her with a wooden blank on the head, making her disoriented and dizzy.

Mai loses control of her own feet, as they stumble forward erratically. Everything spinning... she can only see a blur in front of her, and does her best to dodge it and swing in return. She feels her fist hit a solid object; she must have got him.

A few seconds later, the blur clears and reveals a not so pretty picture; a guy in her face, hand drawn back... and she can see the ominous shimmer of cold steel in his grip.

"Gah!" Mai squeals as she slides to the left just enough to receive only a graze of the razor-sharp blade on her flesh, ripping her dress and creating just enough of a laceration to draw blood.

She angrily curves her elbow forward, smashing his nose inwards and sending him on a one-way trip to the ground, clutching his face in agony as his blood pours.

Mai doesn't even have time to feel satisfied; she lets out a yelp into the sky as a hard, blunt object strikes her from behind, directly in the shoulder. All at once, the pain flares up; she begins to fear even moving that arm, lest she discover something was dislocated.

In pure survival mode, Mai whips out her fans and starts swinging like a madwoman. She catches one guy in the face, stumbling him away, but he was rejoined by three others as they came at her violently. She closed the left fan and allowed his knife to strike the solid wood handle; with a flick of her wrist, she sends his knife into the air and delivers a forceful kick to his stomach to send him backwards.

The other two meet similar fates; she moves her fans with the grace of a dancer, but with the skills of an assassin, putting them both flat on their backs with swift strokes.

Mai starts to feel confidence rising. Reassurance is welling inside her... she can survive this! She's all alone, assailants all around her, not even a prayer of support, since Andy was out of town and she had left her cellphone charging on the lamp post. But all things considered... she's doing well. As long as she has her fans...

...Of course, she failed to take into consideration the various arsenal of weapons the thugs have at their disposal. She held her right wrist a little TOO high; high enough for a steel chain to wrap around her fan and yank it from her grasp.

"N-NO!" Mai stumbles and instinctively outstretches her bare hand to attempt to grab it, but it was already far out of reach.

Distracted from losing one of her weapons, she allowed one thug to get a free hit on her, decking her in the face with his bare knuckles. He must have lost his weapon... no matter. His hands hurt just as bad.

Mai tries to open her fan, but as soon as the pretty paper design is spread like a peacock's feathers... a knife jams right through it, the blade inches from between her eyes.

Mai gasps in fear as the thug in question jerks his hand upwards, causing Mai's fan to go flying as it was hooked clean by the knife's blade. It seemed to soar endlessly, hopelessly out of reach, no chance of the kunoichi ever being close enough to regain it.

Mai was down to her bread and butter: hands, feet, and all the will to live she had in her heart.

She parries a knife with her bare wrist, managing to avoid being touched by the blade itself. A sharp elbow to the ribs sends the thug packing. One thug comes at her from the front, swinging a wooden plank wildly; Mai's forearm stops the weapon, and she has to play through the pain to counter with a fierce palm to his nose. As the thug was sent staggering, she had to allow herself at least a moment's relief, shaking her arm uncomfortably.

One tries to close in from behind; Mai effortlessly sends a kick his way, then gracefully bring that foot back to her northern direction to catch a thug in the face before he could rush her.

...But as many as she repels, they just keep coming. How? Where did they all come from? Did all these guys just want a piece of Mai Shiranui on a whim? Yeah, she was a sexy minx, and the envy of every guy in the universe... but this was too organized. Someone had planned this... but who?

That's when she sees him: he still had tears in his eyes, and was still hobbling. She could see him strain, buckling his knees as he tried to come at her with a baseball bat.

"Y-You're that prick...!" she gasps.

"I SAID YOU'D REGRET IT!" the man squeaked as he swung at Mai's head with full force.

As Mai moves her head out of the way of his wild swing... she attacks with a little more fury than normal. Her fist finds his kidneys with a sharp jab, and he buckles to his knees much in the fashion he had a half hour ago when she gave him what-for.

...But she didn't stop there. She wanted to punish this guy... this piece of GARBAGE, who dared try to make a prize of her. He had the audacity, the BALLS, to round up a posse and try to take her by force after she already said no? UNFORGIVABLE!

Mai wanted this guy to pay. As he hit the ground, she opened up his legs... and started ramming her fists into his testicles as hard as she could, even harder than the times she tried to break boards during practice. Over and over she punches, his squeaky squeals of absolute torment music to her ears. This was everything he deserved... and more.

In the heat of her passion, she had all but forgotten she was surrounded. A thug finally brought her back to reality as he stomped her in the back and sent her tumbling. She rolled quickly, jumping back to her feet only to see a thug coming at her with his knife swinging wildly.

Mai avoided the first two swipes, but yelped as the blade finally tasted her blood on the third swing, as it drove across her cheek and opened her up wide. She angrily kicked the man aside, not even time to put a hand on the afflicted area before the chain-wielding thug wrapped his weapon around her arm and jerked her to the ground.

"GaaAAAAH!" Mai yelped as she landed on her back. The chain-wielding guy stomped her in the dirt a few times, but she quickly kicked him away and sprang back up... only to receive a wooden plank to her stomach.

It's no use. Mai is clearly getting outnumbered...and beaten to a pulp no matter what she does. She gets hit left and right until she gets hit one more time by a larger guy, falls on her back and they pin her to the ground, grinning as they grope her large breasts, chuckling as they drool over her sexy body.

"It's over..." she thinks to herself. "I...I underestimated them."

However, just when she's done for, two pairs of hands grab their shoulders from behind, get pulled back forcefully and getting beaten. Mai weakly lifts her head up to see two familiar girls standing in front of Mai, getting into their battle stances.

"L-Leona? Athena?"

Athena is the first to turn and come to her aid. "Mai! Oh, no...you're badly injured. Those dreadful guys did this to you…"

"Athena! Now's not the time to be tearing up over Mai's injury," Leona says. "We'll handle these guys, Mai. You don't have to worry."

"B-but...how did you know...I was here?" Mai asks.

"I sensed you," Athena replies. "I have Psycho Power remember? I sensed you were in great trouble, so I called in for a little help to rescue you."

"Athena...Leona..." Mai looks back and forth at her two friends.

Athena stands up and holds out the "stand back" gesture. "Wait here. We will handle this."

"Oh, we'd like to see you try!" the guy in the middle shouts. "Get those girls!"

Leona and Athena separate and each battle the guys to take them down. Athena does a series of punches and kicks to the gut, face and chest, sending them far toward the wall, knocking them unconscious. She turns around and parries one guy with a pipe, pounds his head with her fist to make him feel dizzy and repeats her basic attacks, a couple of punches, a round house kick and then a straight one to make him fly toward another wall.

As for Leona, she is dodging every attack the guys try to lay on her. She uses her bladed hands to cut down those weapons left and right and sweep kicks them to knock them down. She grabs one of them, knees him in the stomach, throws him down and stomps on his face hard to make him barely move. She does a roundhouse kick to the one who is trying to hit her with a sneak attack. That doesn't work at all for him.

Mai watches the two fighting for her sake. She is so happy that she has two reliable friends that will protect her when everything is about to end for her. She is very grateful to them.

The two girls fight and fight until there are 2 muscular guys left. Apparently, one of them is the leader of the gang and the other is his right hand man. They are tall and strong, but Leona and Athena don't fear them.

"It's just two of you left!" Athena says, pointing at the two tough men. "What you did to Mai was unforgivable!"

"Leave this place, or get hurt..." Leona says.

"We refuse..." the gang leader growls.

Athena charges at the leader to pummel him with some punches and kicks, but he attempts to hit her with a very large pipe. She parries that with her arm and pounds his head with her fist before doing her basic attacks again. She swings a back fist to his chin to make him stumble a bit and punches him left and right and then uses her Psycho Sword attack to put him down...for now.

His right hand man charges at her with a knife in his hand, but she dive rolls away and starts to punch him. He doesn't even budge from her attacks and grabs her by the wrist to headbutt her.

Athena sees nothing but distortion in front of her... if the man were to run her through with a knife, she probably wouldn't even see it.

Luckily, Leona has her back; as the man draws his hand back to thrust his knife, a slicing blue streak of chi courses across the handle, severing the blade from the base upwards.

The man looks down in shock; he'd holding nothing but a wooden knife handle. That confused expression was the last face he'd wear before Leona's knee smashes into his jaw and lays him out.

Leona spins around to try and intercept the other man, who had gotten back up... but it was too late. His lead pipe rams into her stomach, jarring her, sending her backwards.

"Ouuuf...!"

That hurt as bad as possible... and Leona had to hold in the contents of her stomach. But the pain made her angry... and an angry Leona was a dangerous one.

The man tries to swing his lead pipe at her face; Leona merely slashes through it with a wave of her hand, reducing it to nothing but a metal stub.

Although disarmed, the buff though persistently comes at Leona with a flurry of punches. As tough as Leona is... the man's frame is simply too large for her to keep parrying his colossal blows. After managing to bounce off several alternating hooks... a left hand straight down the middle catches her in the chin and sends her down in the dirt.

Athena manages to keep him at bay with a leaping kick to the back of the head; she had to jump just to REACH the darn thing. As the thug lands on his hands and knees, temporarily disabled, Athena quickly rushes to help Leona up.

"Cmon, we gotta protect M-AAAAGH!"

Athena never gets to finish that sentence, as a left hook from hell puts her lights out. She hits the ground, incapable of getting up... and both the thug leader and his trusted cohort are back on their feet, backing Leona up…

"Whoops~!" One of the men chuckle. "I think we broke that purple haired hottie~"

"There's no where to hide now~" the other man says.

Mai struggles to her feet, but due to the huge beating, she is unable to. "A-Athena...Leona...!"

"Ah, shut up!" the dude with the pipe quickly goes behind her and puts his pipe against her throat. "Speak any more and I will silence you, understand!?"

"St-stop it..." Leona groans as she tries to get up but the dude with the knife knocks her down again with his foot.

"Looks like we win~" the buffer man says. "We're taking you three with us...to have a lot of fun once that purple haired cutie wakes up. Ohhh, this will be a dream when we get to have the three of you all to ourselves~!"

"N-not...gonna happen..." Leona tries to speak, but the impact of the hits she took makes her unable to.

"Then, die!" The pipe man begins to choke Mai with his pipe and the poor ninja struggles to get free.

As for Leona, rage is building up within her. The buffer man comes closer and closer to her, grinning while grabbing her by the shirt. He is ready to kill her. However, his eyes widen when he can see some change in her behavior. Snarling...the eyes glowing yellow and her blue hair changing red. And then...the change is complete. Leona has gone Riot.

"RAAAAAAA!" She shoves him out of the way and does a fury of punches, even more powerful than before. The buffer man is staggering from each hit he takes and is unable to retaliate whatsoever.

Orochi Leona growls as she punches the daylights out of this dude. Right toward a wall where she keeps on punching. And then...she digs her hands on the pavement, lifts up a large piece of of the road and chucks it at him.

"ARRRRAAAAGH!" She shouts and the rock hit its target, knocking him out with blood trickling down his head.

She growls as she swiftly turns toward the other man, who drops Mai out of fear, holding his pipe tightly as he backs away and Orochi Leona begins to slowly get closer and closer. He has no idea that this Leona, the Orochi Leona, is 10 times stronger than him.

"Guhhh... guuuuuuh GET AWAY!"

The scared witless thug throws what's left of his lead pipe at Leona, striking her in the face. But the woman, consumed with bloodlust, keeps walking forward as if a mere butterfly had grazed her skin.

"Oh god... ahhh... is this how I'm gonna die... gaaah... NO! I WON'T GO DOWN LIKE A BITCH!"

Unfortunately for him, he went down EXACTLY like a bitch; as he tried to throw a punch at Leona, she caught his wrist and twisted his hand completely clockwise... MULTIPLE times... like winding a clock. His bone rattled and snapped as she twisted, twisted, twisted... his screams were more pathetic than a baby as he fell to his knees, blubbering, begging Leona to grant him a sweet release.

Finally, as the Angel of Death had a tinge of mercy... Leona eased his pain with a swift knockout punch that put him to sleep.

Leona snarls softly as she takes a few deep breathes, closes her eyes and then, after calming down, her Orochi power disappears, returning her back to normal. She turns toward the unconscious Athena and tenderly picks her up.

"Athena! Athena!" she cries. "Wake up!"

Fortunately, the idol hears her. A few soft moans as her eyes flutter open and her vision clears to see the bluenette looking down at her.

"Did we...did we win?" Athena asks. She looks around to see the two remaining men down for the count...brutally in fact. "L-Leona-san...did you do this?"

Leona hangs her head low. "I had to. There was no other choice. I'm so sorry if I hurt any others..."

"No...it's alright," Athena says. "You actually used your power to protect people. That's very good."

The two look over at Mai who is recovering from that chokehold and run to her aid.

"Breathe, Mai!" Leona says. "Breathe!"

Mai takes a few more deep breathes and lets out a few heavy exhales. "Haaaah...haaah...is everyone...safe?" Leona nods and Mai takes the time to look around, especially the last two guys. "Oh...my. Leona...did you..."

"Yes...I had no choice..." Leona says.

"Oh Leona... Athena... you guys are the best friends I ever had!"

Mai wails as she buries herself in their embrace, letting her tears fall freely. Both Athena and Leona allow their shirts to get soaked, as they tighten their embrace around Mai... encasing her in a cocoon of warmth... and protection.

"It's okay, Mai." Athena soothed. "Nothing can hurt you now. Nothing."

"As long as I'm breathing, nothing ever will." Leona whispered softly.

"*Sniff*… Athena...L-Leona... don't let go of me... please…"

Mai passes out in their arms, both from a mixture of fatigue, pain... and the overwhelming relief of being saved by her loved ones. As she closes her eyes, tears still falling... her lips are curled in a smile.

Athena and Leona look at each other for a second, then down at Mai. Scooping her up, they hold her tight and carry her home, where nothing else can harm her.


End file.
